No. You are inferring that I am inferring. Was it a good report or not? No, inferring allowed.
2015 BMW N20 X1 UOA 5K MILES NON-EURO OIL
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OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
I'm going to put this up again, and see if there is any new response. This is from a Mobil1 video that Crowley put up earlier in this string, when he was differing with one of my posts. I direct your attention to the header put there by Mobil 1 in the frame. Read that a few times out loud if you don't see my point.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
And that's a valid statement, within the context of both the wide range given to iron as being at "very low levels" (see close to 40ppm on the 1st OCI, 25ppm on the 2nd, trending down to about 5ppm at 120,000 miles) indicating that nothing unusual was taking place, and of course the fact that it was being validated via tear-down.
That's the proper use of the tool, and consistent with @Doug Hillary's use as well. Track, looking for anything unusual; any anomalies, and then perform a tear-down inspection to confirm performance. Improper use on the other hand, would be trying to use PPM variances between lubes to gauge relative performance.
D
Deleted member 89374
Please take a screenshot of my comment where I posted this video from Engineering Explained on YouTube and post it. Thank you.
To be fair: oil analysis labs are businesses that depend on customers sending in their samples and paying for spectroscopic analysis. As a bonus, labs like Blackstone will include some comments that are useless for the most part under the guise of "analysis interpretation." These same labs also perpetuate the idea that their analysis can be used to infer wear, which is a fallacy.
To conclude this thread on a happy note, I'd like to say the following:
@KEVINK0000 - keep running Quaker State Full Synthetic 5W-30, and kindly post a UOA after every oil change. I also kindly ask you to let us know when that BMW N20 engine finally gives up the ghost while running QS FS 5W-30. I believe that these are exceedingly reasonable requests that would support and reinforce your statements, convictions, arguments, and experiment. Thank you.
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Happy Easter, everyone!
D
Deleted member 89374
Same to you.
I just responded in kind.
Yes, I stated the report was a good report. What do you think is not good regarding the the OP's report. Ball is in your court, Cowboy.
Not trying to get into middle of a street fight, but simply summarizing. The viscosity dropped a lot, more than 30%. This is an indirect correlation with the fact that the oil went through a lot of stress and sheared too much. So the conclusion would be that engine has tortured the oil and the oil barely alive or already has died in agony. In other words, the oil is not suitable for the engine.
But who actually knows without a long test with multiple OCI using the same oil and tear down the engine at the end as a proof.
But who actually knows without a long test with multiple OCI using the same oil and tear down the engine at the end as a proof.
No it's not, at least not from this UOA.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Just on the visc loss bit, per the OP:
So it did drop from the upper-middle of the xW-30 range into the middle of the xW-20 range, or around 38%.
D
Deleted member 89374
I hope you can find the time and patience to watch it to understand better how motor oil is tested during the formulation process and how engine wear is measured.
There is a reason why that motor oil is unfit for the N20 engine. Quaker State FS 5W-30 is formulated with thin base oils and overloaded with viscosity improvers. If nothing else, those will turn into deposits that look like brown caramel-poop, and they will become harder and harder to remove from the engine's insides. It's unfit for turbo-charged engines, but that's another story - though people will run it in their Ford EcoBoost motors and wonder why they have varnish and sludge buildup in 75K miles. Objectively speaking, it's a cheaply formulated oil meant to bring in profits. Considering that for $3 less, you can run the correct oil, it just doesn't make any sense.
Trying to justify this "experiment" further is like saying that you know what will happen if you eat three donut-cheeseburgers a day, but you want to do it regardless. Bad cholesterol be darned! Because you want to see what happens... even though the outcome is 100% predictable.
Right, sorry I was referring to the supposed reason for the drop.
Going back a few pages, Overkill was kind enough to post a series of images which contain API, ILSAC, and ACEA certification tests, as well as a few manufacturer-specific ones. The Mercedes-Benz sequence testing is significant, though to be fair there are gobs of certification standards there, so that adds massively to the apparent quantity of the tests. Thanks to him for taking the time to do that.
What seems to me to come across from that sequence of posts, perhaps more than anything else, is that the euro certifications are big on lab or bench tests. Those are interesting, and I hope that at least one or two of them has been correlated to some real-life aspect of engine wear or durability. They're not as interesting to me as engine tests, though, because bench tests are at least mostly conducted on new oil only.
SP + GF-6 requires at least 7 _engine_ tests. I counted fewer than that for the ACEA certification, once I pulled out the diesel-specific tests (did I miss some?). Those diesel-specific engine tests have to be removed or ignored in order to compare properly to the gasoline-only API and ILSAC certifications under discussion here. I scanned quickly looking for BMW-specific engine tests. I must have missed them in my quick scan. How many gasoline-specific, non-duplicative _engine_ tests does the BMW spec which applies to the engine and vehicle in the OP add to ACEA's testing?
It seems like the _engine_ tests are similar in number and type between the standards in question, relative to OP's vehicle. Are there glaring _engine_ test differences?
What seems to me to come across from that sequence of posts, perhaps more than anything else, is that the euro certifications are big on lab or bench tests. Those are interesting, and I hope that at least one or two of them has been correlated to some real-life aspect of engine wear or durability. They're not as interesting to me as engine tests, though, because bench tests are at least mostly conducted on new oil only.
SP + GF-6 requires at least 7 _engine_ tests. I counted fewer than that for the ACEA certification, once I pulled out the diesel-specific tests (did I miss some?). Those diesel-specific engine tests have to be removed or ignored in order to compare properly to the gasoline-only API and ILSAC certifications under discussion here. I scanned quickly looking for BMW-specific engine tests. I must have missed them in my quick scan. How many gasoline-specific, non-duplicative _engine_ tests does the BMW spec which applies to the engine and vehicle in the OP add to ACEA's testing?
It seems like the _engine_ tests are similar in number and type between the standards in question, relative to OP's vehicle. Are there glaring _engine_ test differences?
BMW doesn't publish a list of their tests. We know the N20 is used to test for chain wear. It could be similar to the test for chain wear under SP. BTW the ACEA certs categorized by HTHS and SAPS.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Unfortunately, we have no idea what the actual BMW tests consist of because they don't publish the details, as @BMWTurboDzl noted.
If you are talking just API vs ACEA, well yes, the ACEA sequences are foundational. The Euro OEM's all have their own approvals on top of that, very much unlike the API where a lot of manufacturers (Toyota, Honda, Nissan) typically don't have their own approvals (exceptions noted), or the approvals are just enhancements over the API stuff (Ford and Stellantis). GM is really the only API-market company to have their own elaborate approvals that are more similar to what they have going on in Europe.
And yes, the diesel tests go hand-in-hand with a lot of the approvals. For example, the foundation for one of the BMW approvals, which I believe I pointed out, is a diesel ACEA sequence, so you can't really cut them out of the picture just because the API stuff is petrol-only, in fact, that's an important distinction to bear in mind.
Probably the most interesting tests we've seen the details on are the Porsche ones.
The VW test sequences also include a lot of engine tests:
Also, these are just what is published. There may be other details to these approvals that we aren't aware of.
So, I wouldn't expect the BMW approvals to be light on engine testing. But it will be SPECIFIC engine testing, what BMW feels is applicable to their products, just like Porsche's Nurburgring simulation testing, the above VW testing or the Mercedes testing you've already commented on.
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